Irish higher education booked another strong year of foreign enrolment growth in 2024

The number of international students enrolled in Irish higher education reached a new record high in the 2023/24 academic year. The total number of foreign students reached 40,400, passing the 40,000-student benchmark for the first time and representing a 15% increase over the previous year.

This compares to just under 30,000 in 2019/20, the last year before the onset of COVID-19. The same pattern is playing out in Ireland's key ELT sector, where total enrolment and student weeks have also surpassed pre-pandemic levels. English Education Ireland reports that 128,300 students were enrolled in English language learning programmes in 2023, for a total of 899,220 student weeks delivered.

The latest higher education data comes from Ireland's Higher Education Authority (HEA), which provides an annual update with detailed observations on international student trends.

The HEA reports that, while foreign enrolments in Ireland have historically been weighted toward undergraduate studies, that gap has closed since 2020/21. As of 2023/24, enrolments were split roughly equally between undergraduate and graduate programmes, with the latter showing the strongest growth year-over-year. Between 2022/23 and 2023/24 alone, the number of foreign students in Irish graduate programmes grew by 24% (from 15,725 to 19,505) whereas the number in undergraduate studies increased by less than 8% over the same period.

Where are students coming from?

India surged to the top of the table of leading sending markets for Irish higher education in 2023/24. There were just over 7,000 Indian students enrolled that year, marking nearly a +50% increase over the year before and accounting for a significant percentage of overall growth for Irish universities.

All other top sending countries (except for Germany) saw year-over-year growth of +11% or less in 2023/24. Rounding out the top sending markets were the United States (5,655, +11%), China (4,405, +11%), the UK (essentially flat at 3,110 students), Canada (1,980, +2%), and Germany (1,210, +15%).

The significant uptick in Indian student numbers is noteworthy, in part because of the disruption caused by new policy settings in other leading destinations – notably Australia, Canada, and the UK – throughout 2024. Many observers are reporting resulting shifts in student demand away from the Big Four destinations and in favour of alternate study destinations in Europe and Asia. The latest HEA data would suggest that Ireland is one such beneficiary.

In 2023/24, the top fields of study for foreign students in Ireland (using the "Isced Broad Field of Study" classifications provided by HEA) are health and welfare; business, administration, and law; arts and humanities; information and communication technologies; engineering, manufacturing, and construction; and natural sciences, mathematics, and statistics.

For additional background, please see:

• "Foreign enrolment in Irish HE reaches a new high"
• "Irish ELT sector continues to exceed pre-pandemic levels of business"